I had a post on that story, but I can't get through to my threads display (HN seems to cut that off when load is high, makes sense, not complaining). But I'll endorse aoeu's Wikipedia link. Between that and some of the article Wikipedia links you can get a pretty good idea of the problem and the scope.

Until this problem goes away, CDs are no longer the choice of discriminating audio enthusiasts.... but not because "digital" is worse than "analog", but rather because "destroyed digital" is simply bad. Right now in the "digital vs. analog" war, CDs aren't bringing their A-game.... they're not even bringing their D-game.

A further thought occurs to me; maybe people prefer "Crappy 44KHz originals with clipping softened by MP3" to "Raw crappy 44KHz originals". This ought to be controlled for, if it wasn't, as this might be the rational choice even by audiophile standards. (Yes, it's crap vs. crap, but there may yet be a distinctly less crappy one.)

I can't see that article (you can use searchyc.com to search) but there are lots of articles around if you search for loudness war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Here it is: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=505321